Quote Originally Posted by negotiator6 View Post
They are not going to find personnel with PHD's to bump around in a Humvee around the back roads of Paktia or Khwost Provnces adjacent to the Paki border.
Actually, I'm not sure that's quite the problem you think it is. Take today, for example: I got an email this morning from one of my PhD students who is off interviewing both Islamists and secret policemen in a Middle Eastern country, had another graduate student drop by 5 minutes ago to discuss her impending fieldwork in a country on the verge of civil war (she's already been evacuated from a war zone one), and later this afternoon have a meeting with a third who was imprisoned for a year for his earlier research and activism in an authoritarian regime.

The bigger problem, actually, is career interruption. For recent PhD students and graduates who hope to eventually land academic jobs, there could a real cost long-term to losing a year or two of thesis-writing, academic publication, and job interviews because one is deployed as part of a HTS.